Episode 127: The Beginning of the Christological Controversy: Apollinaris of Laodicea and Theodore of Mopsuestia

In this episode, Tom, Trevor, and Chad return to the format of earlier podcasts and discuss a few texts from early Christian thinkers. In this case, we are talking about Apollinaris of Laodicea and Theodore of Mopsuestia. They represent early christological thinking from an Alexandrian and Antiochene point of view. Thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy these episodes.

Timestamps:

This episode has a lot of (interesting) preliminary banter; skip to 45:55 if you want to get straight the textual interaction.

45:55- Heresy and Apollinaris

1:12:35- What is Possession?

1:31:11- The Bauer Thesis

1:42:22- The Dogmatic Ceiling

1:57:54- The Hypostatic Union

2:04:07- Christology and the Worship of Christ

Charles Kim 0:00

Hello, and welcome to A History of Christian theology. My name is Chad Kim. With me this week will be Tom Velasco and Trevor Adams. Sorry for the delay and getting out this new podcast. It's been a crazy start to the semester for me. But with this podcast, Tom, Trevor and I are gonna get back together again. We've recorded a few different conversations, where we talk about the development of early Christian Christology, so we're going to start thinking about the various figures and controversies, which played a role in helping Christians think through exactly what it means to say that Jesus Christ is Lord write that this this human who walked on the earth that we know from the Gospels, how is Jesus also the God of the Old Testament? To use Robert Jensen's phrase, God is whoever having rescued Israel from Egypt, rose Jesus from the dead, right? So God is the same person who did both of these things. And so we want to talk through a little bit exactly how early Christians understood the the divine nature of Jesus and the human nature of Jesus, as they reflected on the scriptures. So I will intersperse these conversations with other interviews with scholars. So depending on what kind of stuff you're interested in, you might not want to listen to all of them, I guess. But I think they're all really good conversations. So I'm looking forward. I'm looking forward to having a conversation out soon with Ross McCullough, about the nature of freedom and how that plays into the question of evil. So we do have sort of typical scholarly conversations, as well as just reading through early Christian sources, thinking through where the where the sort of great teachings of the Church come from. So I also wanted to say it give a shout out to Reuben Astin, he messaged us on Facebook and told us that he decided to study theology and philosophy. And so I just was really excited to hear that and wanted to wish him all the best as he starts down his own more academic study of these things. So I'm always glad to hear I'm always glad to hear ways in which we're, you know, able to encourage people in their faith and in their academic lives. And so that's great to hear. So congrats, Reuben. And good luck, I think at the University of Cambridge if I'm looking at this correctly. So today our first conversation on Christology where we look at some early thinkers upholland, heiress of later Cassia and, and Theodore of Mapquest. Yes, so we're going to look at just some of these very early people. Before we get into notorious and Cyril and some of the more, the more well known thinkers. Thanks for listening, please do find us at a history of Christian theology.com, as well as our Facebook page and our Twitter page

Trevor Adams 2:58

Got it. I did that independent study where I read the whole book, and we had to do a chapter summary. It's a l&r stumps book. And I had to do a chapter summary. And then I had like an hour long discussion every single time I turned one of these in with the professor who was helping me do the study. And that's kind of where I learned everything. And he was Catholic. And yeah, I hadn't heard of it. Until then, either this idea that sort of God is in some sense responsible for the good we do because God gave us a will, which is just an appetite for the good. And so through forming us, if you talk about formal causes, cause the good things we do. But in terms of efficient cause isn't like at all interrupting the actual, you might say, physical causal chains, if you were to make it, put it in contemporary terms.

Charles Kim 4:03

But yeah, well, but that's, that's exactly it, right? I mean, you have to have an Aristotelian separation of the the so the word cause whatever that means, which I mean, every time you know, it's like the like, I guess you probably know this as well as I do. But like I was sort of, you know, we read a lot from like Scottish common language sort of philosophy or sort of where it's like, we want to base it on sort of intuitions and the way that we speak. But every time you dig deep enough into a thing, you end up sort of changing what you mean, and you go well, actually, what I mean by cause is not what you think, when you use the word, cause and so now I have to, like sort of tinker with the language a little bit so that we could say that God is a cause in the way that you just said the volitional, the source of the volition itself, but not the efficient not The one creating the bad action. And so it's like, okay, and then it's like, I find that kind of persuasive. But it's, of course, a far cry from what anyone actually means when they say cause.

Trevor Adams 5:10

Yeah, and that's why when you talk about, if you try to take Aquinas and situate him amongst the libertarian thinkers alive today, it doesn't quite fit neatly, because he's actually totally fine with you. Because your will is just an appetite for the good and if your intellect presents something as the only way to do something, then you would have never done otherwise, he's totally fine with denying the principle of alternative possibilities, which is like the way free wills often talked about by libertarians who, who are incompatible realists. So he's weird because he does think freewill is incompatible with causal determinism which would be efficient causes like all the way down then his wording. So yeah, you have to like be careful when you talk about but it that's why Aquinas he gets labeled in contemporary speech, a source incompatible list instead of a leeway incompatible list. And that's that's like my extent of my knowledge. At least that is a very popular I should say. It's a popular interpretation of it, because I know he does talk about the liberate them are arbitrary. Adam Liberata, I forget the Latin, you know, the liberty of the will. He does talk about your

Charles Kim 6:41

ability to leave or maybe Trium Yeah, libera. Yeah. He

Trevor Adams 6:44

mentions it insists that people say no, he is just a straightforward pap person, principle alternative possibilities person, but there's like a lot of like, scholarship that's been like, no, no, because look at all these instances, he regards as free where he says, like you only, you only would do one thing. So we didn't have to understand what he's saying here. And it's he thinks it's he thinks there are some actions where you do have the LA the liver, or whatever. Yeah, there are some instances where, where you have it, but it's not sufficient for freedom, something like that. So efficient, but not necessary. Sorry, it would be sufficient. If you had an instance where you could do otherwise that would be good enough, but it's unnecessary for freedom.

Tom Velasco 7:34

So Aquinas, not a libertarian.

Trevor Adams 7:39

No, he is a libertarian, but he's a libertarian. He's not a leeway. Libertarian. Yeah. Because all you need to be to be a libertarian, is you have to be an incompatibilist. Who thinks you have free will. And so he she hits those two boxes, he just doesn't think the PAP is necessary for free.

Tom Velasco 7:59

I was making a bad joke. Oh, that was just making like so not, you know, I was just like, politically not a libertarian.

Trevor Adams 8:06

Ah, sorry. I'm not like in philosophy mode right now.

Tom Velasco 8:13

Well, that's that was for me to joke, right. That was, that was a joke, especially if anybody else were to hear this 94% of the people listening might assume that a libertarian is somebody who thinks that the government needs to keep their hands out of our business.

Trevor Adams 8:30

Aquinas is against driver's licenses.

Tom Velasco 8:36

And taxi Well, yeah.

Charles Kim 8:40

So Tom, I was telling Trevor that I'm interviewing a guy next well, like in like two weeks, who wrote a book, it's called freedom. What did I say freedom and no freedom and sin evil in a world created by God. But it's an interesting, it's a he's a. He's like a philosopher, PhD from Yale. And but he he wrote a book about, like, how is it possible that we could be free to do evil, but God is still in some sense, the cause of us doing good? And so like, what does it mean for us to be free, and God forbid, either the cause of our bad action or the the cause our good actions, but not our bad actions? And it's all predicated on this thing that I was telling Trevor, I was like, I, I find his argument persuasive in a certain sense, except for I realized, like, I never had heard anything like what he's presenting until I was doing my PhD program. And I encountered a philosopher theologian called Herbert McCade. Who's a total Miss basically, of a certain sort. But it's this idea that like, are willing and God's willing are not incompatible with each other. So if God wills it, we can also will it it still be a real will And, but But then if that's the case, you know, it seems to be strange for us to say that God, like how do we think that absolve God from willing are evil actions. And, and so he calls it a non competitive account that's also asymmetrical. So it's asymmetric, in the sense that God can will the good things, but not the bad, we are still free, but God still determines it. But the only way that it's possible is if you think that God's willing and are willing, are not in competition with one another. And I've never I didn't like I had never heard this. Like, in when I was doing philosophy or in like the sort of analytic kind of mode, or even when I was among the Calvinists, we just sort of assumed that if we said God, God causes something, then that was in some way, like, would overdetermined our causing, and then we felt like puppets, and like that was just like that intuition was just everywhere. So we were trying to work ourselves out of that problem. And so now this guy is so then Aquinas, I guess, is what we're finding out just comes along and says, Well, those two things are, you know, incommensurate? You know, God is not a being among beings. God is not a cause among causes. And so his willing is not in competition with you're willing. But what I saw, I was telling this to Trevor and I was like, I was like, I mean, that's, yeah, sure. It seems like an elegant solution, in a certain sense. But I was like, I've never heard anyone who had that, like premise. That that are, you know, that God is not a being among beings. And so his willingness just different than are willing.

Tom Velasco 11:43

The, you know, can you flesh out a little bit what he means by so his willing is not in competition with our willing. What does he mean by Well,

Charles Kim 11:52

so what he ends up meaning by it as Trevor was, so we were kind of halfway into this when you came in? Oh, all right, sorry. No, no, it's fine. I told Trevor, before we started, I was like, I meant to, I meant this to be for both of us. But

Tom Velasco 12:06

Peter took a crap for some reason. So

Charles Kim 12:09

yeah, well, so what he means is like that God is the so it requires a few other things, one of which is understanding that God's like sort of the formal cause versus an efficient cause. And so he makes a distinction between like, sort of, you know, God is the reason that there is being and wheeling. And so there's a sense in which he causes all wills. And he's also the, the source of sort of the final cause. So like, what is good? So God determines what is good in some sense, or God is, you know, responsible for our causing what is good. So what is an evil action? Well, an evil action is a deficiency. It's nothing, it's a turn to nothing, this is a turning away, so we can still be responsible and the efficient cause of evil. Because we are defecting from the good, that was already determined by God. And so he so yeah, so God can be straightforwardly responsible for, and in some sense, providentially responsible for goodness and for our existence, but not for our evil actions. Interesting. And I was just telling Trevor, I was like, Well, this is like, I mean, yeah, it's okay. Perfect. Sounds great. But it's it also, it denies kind of like, it does sort of run up against like, what do we think we eat by freedom? And it's sort of like most people who think about sort of libertarian freedom as like freedom to do otherwise. And so it's some sense, it seems strange to call God free. And you know, you have some problems with what does it mean? What does freedom mean with respect to God? And it just well, it requires that you think that, you know, you take the classical position about what evil is, as a privation of the good, you know, which not everyone accepts. I mean, there's, you know, there are other sorts of things, but I was like, and also and then Trevor said, Well, it's just Thomas, which is kind of like, so when I started reading his book, I was like, Well, I've heard this before. And I just, it also made me wonder, why is it that most Calvinists don't seem to have this in mind? Because it could solve a lot of their problems, too, because it seems like they think that our wills are in competition with God. And that's why they, you know, like, it was like, you know, that was where I was kind of like, why, why don't more people talk this way? Yeah.

Tom Velasco 14:40

So he is just kind of espousing Aquinas’s view.

Charles Kim 14:44

As far as I can tell him, I mean, I'm like, I don't know. 70 pages in or something.

Trevor Adams 14:49

Like, yeah, he so I'm reading the overview of his book right now, which is real brief. But he has to be departing At least from the interpretation of Aquinas, I'm familiar with, but that by no means is like the only because he does say he's a compatibilist. So I'm reading this now, but he but he's an in determinist. Yeah. Is that which is a very small subsection like most obviously, most compatibilists are trying to argue the freewill is compatible with determinism. Though the problem of in determinism has been talked about a lot as well, because in determinism seems to also negate freewill. So because then it doesn't seem like your will is the sufficient cause of your actions or something like that. If it's literally chancy you'd want whatever cognitive processes to happen to always cause the same action, you wouldn't want it to be a chance whether that action occurred. So basically, if you're if your actions are dice rolls, it's it's doesn't seem free either. Just seems lucky that you ever do anything you do. So there's a way in which people have been trying to make indeterminism compatible with freewill as well. But I, Aquinas is view I would think already handles this because it's a source foot view. So you just need to be the ultimate cause of your action is in some sense, all your actions. You're sort of like the unmoved mover with regards to actions kinda not really, but kinda because you, sort of you are the only reason it happened. But I'm wondering. I'm wondering what, yeah, so this is really weird. So he must be denying. He must think that. Okay, so he's trying to say that it's, it's compatible with the fact that some of our actions are determined, but not all of them. So yeah, so he's okay with it. He's okay with calling it determined. Aquinas, I don't even think thinks it's determined. It's just for known, like the way someone who builds a house will know what it will look like, in the future, through formal cut, because they drew up the blueprints that the fact that everything's supposed to be sort of eternally present to God, is how God supposed to know, but I don't. I don't, I'm pretty sure coyness wouldn't say it's determined now. Maybe he's gonna say timelessly Spilt Milk is worth crying over is same way. Milk spilt in the past is worth, it's not worth crying over. So gonna call it determine I'm not sure this is interesting. I don't know. I'm kind of curious to know, what is why he calls it determined just based on this little blip that I'm reading on, on Barnes and Nobles website.

Charles Kim 18:15

Well, and I was Tom, I was telling Trevor, it would have been another fun one for you all to be on. urbans only sent me one copy of the book. And so I could reach out and ask for a digital copy. But we've already set the interview for August 2. So it doesn't, you know, there's not a lot of time. But I bet I bet they would give me a digital copy, actually, but but it's also $50 book. So I don't you know, I don't know how many they want to give us. But

Tom Velasco 18:50

yeah, yeah. Well, if they're willing, I might be willing to give it a shot. I mean, I can always wing it. I didn't read the David Bentley Hart's book. But by the way, dude, you interviewed Stanley Haeurwas and didn't tell us. I thought I did tell you but no, I would have said do do everything in your power to get me on the show. Chad, there are 11 theologians that I’m even aware of that they exist. And if we ever have them on the show, you have to let me know. And Howard was one of them. Well, laid out by a friend of mine yesterday after he saw your tweet. He texted me he's like, why in the heck didn't you tell me your power hour was on the show? And I was like, I didn't know. Chad didn't tell me. And he goes, You're absolve them to absolve. Oh,

Charles Kim 19:41

yeah, very good. Well, I mean, to be fair, I I actually scheduled with him a couple different times. So my grandfather died. And we were supposed to like the date the funeral was when I was supposed to interview him. And so it was So anyway, so we had to reschedule a few times. And then he went to France for something I'm not sure. It was, I will say, it would have been hard for us to have multiple people talking to him. Like, I don't know if you listen to it, but yeah, shorter. It's shorter. And he, I don't know, he's 8788. Like, I mean, he's, you know, so he speaks very slowly. And the technology stuff. It's like, I called him on a landline phone. I think he actually called in to the chat on his phone. So it was like it was a little slow and a little stilted. Because he's just not like, you know, technologically savvy.

Tom Velasco 20:43

Oh, yeah. Don't forget, Is this being recorded?

Charles Kim 20:47

Yeah, it is. I don't think I'll have this. Yeah, I just set record. So I didn't forget. Gotcha. But, yeah, but all that to say, I bet I can edit some of that out. But yeah, I should have, I should have let you know, it was fun. I mean, I don't you know, I like actually this kind of funny. So speaking of people that we've had on the show, I've only ever been rejected for an interview one time. And it was just recently, James James K. Smith has a new book coming out with with Baker and I work with Baker sometimes. So I was like, Hey, can I interview James K. Smith, and I got an email from his agent that said, I'm sorry, he does not have time for this so I mean, I I've had you know, we've had Howard Ross, we've had heart we've had lots of other people. And James gayness that I'm getting above my station.

Tom Velasco 21:53

Did you ever find out why we were included on that tweet? Know

Trevor Adams 22:00

what tweet, oh, man, now I'm behind.

Tom Velasco 22:03

Well, you're in the group chat. You responded, you said now we're big time.

Trevor Adams 22:08

Oh, then I've just forgotten what this is about.

Charles Kim 22:12

He this is just a guy that I don't even really know that. Well. I actually didn't know him at all. I just had to look him up. But he's like trying to gather PhD students trying to hand out like money from the Italian government to study religion broadly. And he he reached out to us to Yale Divinity School, Harvard Divinity School, Duke Divinity and like asking all four of us like those three and then me, like, do I know PhD students who want to like, yeah, to like, get the word out. Like I'm equivalent to Harvard Divinity School, in terms of like the kind of students that I can send his way. Yeah, Harvard,

Tom Velasco 22:50

Yale and Duke and the history of Christian incommensurate, like there's, there's a lot. It's like one of those games where you're like, which of these does not fit?

Charles Kim 23:06

It was, yeah, I was kind of like, proud. But I was like, this has got to be an Italian who like type something in and Miss type something? I don't know. Because he doesn't follow me either. That's the other funny thing. But there's no other twitter handle like ours.

Tom Velasco 23:23

Huh? Yeah, maybe he just wrote in Christian history and it popped up.

Trevor Adams 23:29

Yeah, he's like, that seems official.

Charles Kim 23:36

But yeah, so anyway, I haven't yeah, like I don't know other big name theologians. You know, we've sort of joked about having NT right on I guess he was on the your friends podcast,

Tom Velasco 23:49

my friend. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he was on presses, presses podcasts pretty big. is I don't know how. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, all I know is he had a conference at our church. And it was filled. The I mean, our church sanctuary, 1500 people, middle of the week. And he asked how many people from Boise and I couldn't tell you how many people raise their hand but it was not noticeable. So 1500 people flew in. Well, almost 1500 people flew in for the conference. Yeah. Like 100 bucks a pop on the tickets for the conference two or something? You know, so

Charles Kim 24:35

yeah. Not drawing like that.

Tom Velasco 24:40

We could have the first history of Christian theology conference in a Calvary Chapel Boise.

Charles Kim 24:46

Yeah, man. You guys are like the hub of of podcasts there.

Tom Velasco 24:51

We were like, hey, yeah, we got a couple of podcasts here. We got we got a cog in the raw with Preston sprinkle. and his free Christian theology

with with Chad, Tom and Trevor, however, Tom and Trevor only show up once a year. Oh, which

Charles Kim 25:17

we we actually we have a, we have a student intern too.

Tom Velasco 25:22

I think you mentioned that. That's right. Why

Charles Kim 25:25

it's Yeah. Yeah. So Grant Bellchamber couldn't couldn't come on today, but we'll get him on one of these. He's one of my students at SLU. SLU’s paying him to be my student intern for the summer in the fall. Wow. Okay,

Tom Velasco 25:41

what is the what is he doing for us?

Charles Kim 25:43

He, we've got a website, now a history of Christian theology, that's got all the transcripts and other stuff. And he's gonna be doing that he's trying to, um, well, I'm gonna have him read a book or two, along with me. And so I'm going to try to like, help him sort of like, you know, think through like, Okay, how do you summarize an argument of a book? How do you, you know, ask a few questions about a book, and just sort of get him used to kind of like the sort of academic part of like a book review, basically. And so like, for him, it's like learning. So what do I what we get out of it is someone's got to fill up a website, do some social media, do some stuff like that. And then what he'll get out of it is sort of exposure to kind of, you know, academic publishing and like, you know, what, yeah, what does it mean to kind of figure out where, where an author is kind of what they're trying to do with, with a more academic title?

Tom Velasco 26:43

Cool, cool. Yeah, I saw that website is slick and slick. It's good. Yeah. I mean, Trevor and I are a little too prominent in it. I would say.

Just kidding. It's, I mean, we are like I said, we come on once a year, I wouldn't expect this. We're even beyond it, which we're not.

Charles Kim 27:07

Well, I so if you want to send me some headshots, I'll have Grant put you on there as well. So my sister who does marketing, she was the one who was sort of like, you know, basically, you do a lot of the interviews. Now you do a lot of the work like you should also use this as like your personal page.

Tom Velasco 27:24

You do everything you do everything. There is no yeah, I am not. I was just making a joke. Because we have been, we have not been available.

Charles Kim 27:34

So yeah, so anyway, I wasn't meant to insult you. But I should have you guys out there as part of the team. But

Tom Velasco 27:41

oh, you know, we're not insulted. I was just making a making a crack. Yeah, I would.

Trevor Adams 27:46

You need like, yeah, you need like, occasional co hosts.

Tom Velasco 27:52

Like, I think I might, I still don't think I'd even be insulted if we had been recording as much as we did at the start of the broadcast. I just think then it'd be funny, probably but. But we haven't been present. So I cannot complain. I still want to try to make this more consistent, if possible. But I also just get slammed. I'm slammed right now this week has been crazy. I have to read I had to read half of Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace by this afternoon. And I started it like a week and a half ago. The hardest was that, for what? Just because I'm meeting with a friend, we're gonna discuss it. And by the way, I didn't get anywhere near there. I'm only at page 270. It's the hardest thing I've ever read hands down. It's so hard to read. Have you read it? Can

Charles Kim 28:45

I same with you? I've read like 200 pages, and then I just threw it out. I was like, Alright, I'm not doing this.

Tom Velasco 28:51

Trevor, have you ever tried to tackle it?

Trevor Adams 28:54

Now you told me about, you know, Mr. Mr. Foster Wallace, like a long time ago. And you showed me like he had modal logic in one of his books.

Tom Velasco 29:04

He has modal logic in this. I haven't got there yet. But I've seen it in the footnotes.

Trevor Adams 29:08

And I was like, what so I and of course he comes up when people talk about philosophy and like famous authors. So I, I know nothing about like what he thinks but I have a friend who's really like, has an English degree. He's really into literature, who I've been talking to lately. He likes David Foster Wallace for like, how he describes what it's like to be a young man and stuff, but he actually kind of hates the, the I'm smarter than everyone feel, I guess of his books. That's all he told me. He's like, he's like that I kind of he comes off as pretentious to me and I was like, Okay, so he's like, Yeah, you don't have to read a lot like okay, so I don't, no one's told me like you have to read them. Unlike DAF. See ASCII where everyone's like, you have to read this Uh, so I haven't read it. I haven't taken the time.

Unknown Speaker 30:03

Yeah, he does. Come on.

Charles Kim 30:05

I've, I've read almost I say I've read I probably every single essay he's ever written. But that I could find there was like a summer where that was all I want to do. I can't stand to try to read his literature. But I do actually like his essays. Oh, his

Tom Velasco 30:24

essays are incredible. I've read two collections of his essays, loved almost every essay he wrote, I read one collection of his short stories. And at best, I would say I was mixed like I liked half of the short stories, hated half of them. Infinite Jest. I've, there are sections that I have marked up that are just incredible. And but the bulk of it is, what are you talking about? And this is so boring. Like, that's like the bulk of it so far. The guy I'm meeting with today, he's, he's well ahead of me. And he told me that he's finally really digging it. So it's like, I'm like, okay, is this one of those like, runner's high nonsense kinds of things where it's like, but you know, and to your to your friends, criticism. He definitely, I guess it's funny, it never occurred to me that he's, he's telling everybody he's smarter than everybody in the room, but I could be wrong, but it just he is smarter. Like, he might be the smartest human I've ever read. I mean, he has a, I mean, one bachelor's degree in math and in philosophy, a master's degree in philosophy. And then, of course, in English as well, Master's in English, taught at the, at the, you know, taught, was a professor of, you know, lit and all that kind of stuff. And then just has written so incredibly in those his essays they are, who my big thing is, he is just incredibly insightful, I think, into the human psyche. I mean, I think he's in a world where it seems to me, that people who are experts at everything, and constantly telling all of their opinions about the human condition, but all of their opinions are so far off the mark. I think David Foster Wallace is one of those guys. So I feel like when I read his stuff, he's really hitting the mark in terms of what's going on in people. And I'm getting that even a little bit in Infinite Jest. He had a chapter where he just ranted in Infinite Jest. And, man, it just seemed to me that he really hit the mark in terms of what's going on in people's minds, just like he does in so many of his essays.

Charles Kim 32:46

Yeah. I mean, it seems, yeah, I'll see if I could find one on like, his sort of commentary on entertainment and entertainment culture is part of what makes him so brilliant. Like, he's also, um, I think, I think there's a kind of timeless character to it. But he's also very prescient in his kind of criticisms of the entertainment world that we're in and, you know, what, what has, you know? Yeah, I don't know, like, this is some extent like what we've like how we're like cynicism, basically as part of what he's trying to handle. And so how how entertainment culture generates citizen cynicism, and constant parody, and why that leads to never having a genuine feeling.

Tom Velasco 33:35

Yeah. Well, I think people have described honor, there's a term for this where he's like, post postmodern, because postmodern, you know, post modernism, at least in literature is cynical, ironic, almost impossible to find a set like just the int of sincerity. And he's kind of spitting that on his head. So at least from a literary standpoint, that's kind of the the he is, but at the same time, he's not skipping over the cynicism and the irony. He's not embracing sentimentality. Of course, he's, it's the opposite. Instead, he's going through the cynicism and the irony, to try to get to the bottom and find one sincerely held belief or thought or, you know, you name it. I mean, it'd be easy to read Infinite Jest and see it as pure irony. But you can tell he's not trying to do that. He's, he's going through it, it seems.

Charles Kim 34:35

And then he, I mean, but the hard part is, is he ends by committing suicide. So I mean, so like some, some of it is there's you know, it's one of those figures in my mind like when when I think through like Dietrich Bonhoeffer or something or I was, I mean, not that Vaughn have committed suicide, but like, his whole life is interesting because of the way that it ends. And so you're trying to understand all the work to submit extent it might, at least in my mind, when I was reading Bong offer, I was always curious how you got to the like, what what were the ideas that led him to his final position on on Hitler and then ultimately his his death. And there's a sense in which like for Wallace, you're fascinated because he seems to diagnose the situation that a lot of us are raised. And he's a little older than we are. But he's a Gen X, sir. Well, it's Tom's age. I mean, I'm, I think I'm either a geriatric millennial or a Gen X.

Tom Velasco 35:28

He's older than me. He died at 46. And I'm 45. And he died in a way so.

Charles Kim 35:32

Okay, so yeah, so he's Yeah, so he's even, but he's, he's been anyway, still Jenner Gen X. But yeah, yeah. And so he he sort of understands a lot of that cynicism and irony and, and stuff like that, that we were like kind of raised in or I was raised in. And then but But what to do with that. And then so because his life it now it seems like he was a bipolar or at least he was on medication for for mental illness. And he was off his medication when he died. Also, in one of his most famous essay was one of his most famous things is this talk called This is water. And sort of famously in the middle of it, he says, Why? Why does every person who commit suicide shoot themselves in the head, because the mind is a terrible is a is a great servant, but a terrible master. And so everybody wants to kill the mind. And so they shoot themselves in the head. Yeah.

Tom Velasco 36:31

Well, and in in Infinite Jest, Infinite Jest is kind of obsessed with suicide. So I haven't seen that much of that. I read a couple of his short stories that dealt with that, but none of his essays, and it's like front and center and Infinite Jest. Also

Trevor Adams 36:48

was, that was actually the main criticism my friend had that I forgot about, was he was really, he really hated reading something that like, focus so much on suicide, I guess he just found it very depressing and impossible to read.

Tom Velasco 37:06

It was his essays. I don't ever remember coming across one that really dealt with it suicide. But Infinite Jest has a lot on it in in. Yeah, and it's really, of course, it's very dark, obviously. But it's handled very ironically, you know, one of the main characters, the main character, I can't tell like, one of the main characters, I think are three of the main characters in the book, their dad killed himself. And this is a topic of frequent conversation in the book. But he killed themselves by sticking his head or by heat by sticking his head in a microwave which then becomes, and that comes up several times. And this is kind of the way he writes, but you just sit there and go, what, like, how's that even possible? And then finally, about 150 pages in the book? Somebody says, How's that possible? I thought it wasn't even supposed to come on. If it's not latch, and then you go another 100 pages before they describe how he did it, which is he sawed a hole in the middle of the microwave door, and then wrapped tin foil around his neck. I mean, so it's like, on the one hand, yeah, he's, he's writing about it. But that irony is there very thickly, you know, and it's like, this very dark. It's very dark. I mean, I just described the funny parts of it. But it's also very, you know, there's some very, really horrible parts in kind of that description of the dad. So it's like this mix of bitter irony and dark, misery, you know. So. But yeah, and I did read, by the way chat, I read an interview with his wife. And he wasn't really off his meds. What had happened was, he wanted to go off this medication, because it he felt that it was like, it had got his mind, you know, stable, but he was worried that it was going to do some physical damage to him. So his doctor took him off, it tried to put him on some others. And that led to a period leading up to his death of severe severe mental distress, verging on psychosis. And his wife like described a lot of it. She said, he went back on the medication, but she said it just seemed to not do anything after that. So it was a really bad kind of, kind of period of time leading up to it. But she said as bad as it was, she didn't actually think he was gonna kill himself. She said that was a complete shock. So

Trevor Adams 39:47

yeah. Thanks. Dang. Yeah,

Tom Velasco 39:50

yeah. Well, so on that happy note, but I guess I'll end with this, read some of his essays. Start with a simple supposedly funny, fun thing I'll never do. Again. That's a pretty famous one a supposedly fun thing I'll never do again.

Trevor Adams 40:07

Alright, I'll write that down, right in my notes to read.

Charles Kim 40:14

So, okay, we can go two ways on this. Did we read much from Apollinaris or Theodore of Mopsuestia? Yeah, yes,

Tom Velasco 40:24

I read them both.

Trevor Adams 40:25

I got to 116 Okay.

Tom Velasco 40:31

Three pages from the end I think are four.

Charles Kim 40:33

Yeah, it's not a whole lot. So

Trevor Adams 40:36

yeah, I which I know a bit about Apollinarus already or at least I think isn't this the same person who ended up being deemed a heretic? Both of them were Yeah. Oh, both of them were okay. Cuz William Lane Craig is like a Neopollinarian or whatever. So really, when did he do that? It's always been his Christological view, as far as I know, like since well, at least when I listen to his podcasts in 2014 are

Tom Velasco 41:09

William Lane Craig the heretic?

Trevor Adams 41:11

I guess he just doesn't think it's heresy. He just disagrees that it is?

Tom Velasco 41:15

Well, all heretics think that their heresy isn't heresy. Something's condemned as a heresy and what three or one is appalling? Arianism being to heresy what counts? Are Constantinople? Noble? Yeah.

Trevor Adams 41:32

Well, that's why I really want to talk. Hey, hold on. Save the name of that thing again. I'm sorry. I missed it.

Tom Velasco 41:38

Oh, A Supposedly Fun thing I'll never do again.

Trevor Adams 41:42

It was a really fun Thing I will never do again.

Trevor Adams 41:49

Never do again. Okay. Also. So I don't get caught in this like I do every time. I'm gonna pee before we start talking. spirit back.

Tom Velasco 41:59

I think usually that in chat. I think I do. I think the I think people listening would love the banter in front. I'm a fan of including the banter. I think they would love it. Okay, we just have to leave out if I actually would rather leave that in then cut it out. But but just just just an FYI. Even all the banter about Aquinas about Wallace for sure.

Charles Kim 42:34

about suicide all that? Yeah.

Trevor Adams 42:37

Yeah. Okay.

Tom Velasco 42:40

That's my opinion. I mean, we don't, you don't have to, but I mean, it's an unpleasant thing to think about. But it's the topic of, yeah, you know,

Charles Kim 42:51

what, yeah, one thing that I mean, it's kind of it's been fascinating, like, the podcast has gone through many iterations, sort of, but, um, you know, like, my guests will sometimes ask, like, who is my audience? Well, when we started our audience was I jokingly say, the only reason anyone ever listened was because Tom was a pastor at a really big Calvary Chapel Church in Idaho. So we had a ready made set of listeners, because people love Tom. You know, he just had an audience already at his church. And but then, so then I was like, Well, you know, I think we thought of it is like going one step beyond what you might learn on a Sunday morning. So it's like, it's a little bit more technical than what you'd get at Sunday school or from a sermon, but not you know, not crazy. And then, like, at some point, when I started doing interviews, it started getting to it started getting to where it was like, I mean, these are you know, little like more in depth scholarly interviews, like this is something like you might ask at a graduate seminar on Yeah. And so my, the conversations kind of go all over the map, but I do get people who regularly will message us on Twitter or Facebook, they're like, Hey, we miss Tom and Trevor, are you guys still going to record so there are there are people who kind of come from that angle that do like our banter or just do like us talking through them together? And then I do know that there are other like more scholarly people who just want to hear, you know, so you know, oh, well, I just want to hear what someone's take is on. Yeah. Wisdom, universal both.

Tom Velasco 44:31

And then they can just skip like so the birth scholarly people can skip our talk. Our banter? Definitely.

Trevor Adams 44:40

Was that I was gonna say definitely, that's already a model like I think of Joe Rogan, for example. Most people don't listen to like all of it would be way too hard. You just skip the people you don't care about. Or if you're just an MMA fan, like when I used to, I used to listen to a lot more, but now it's on Spotify. I hate the Spotify app, but like I just would go to the MMA episodes pretty much because when I first

Tom Velasco 45:06

I've always skipped all the MMA episodes, I want to find his social commentary, guys. Yeah.

Trevor Adams 45:11

Which makes sense like and I would listen to like a couple non MMA but like I used to just mostly ones I like so yeah, I think it's a good model like in the sense that it's been done before we could definitely do it.

Tom Velasco 45:24

Yeah, for sure. By the way, I'm a huge MMA fan. I just did not care about those guys.

Trevor Adams 45:32

I love the inside baseball not every guest was great, but like I loved hearing about like, complaining about the gloves and like better glove technology and whether or not you can get a good gable grip on a UFC glove and stuff and yeah, anyway. I love that stuff. Ya know,

Charles Kim 45:55

We read we read Apollinaris of Laodicea, Laodicea. And then we also read a little bit from Theodore of Mopsuestia. Yeah, both of them are sort of Syrian, Asian, Middle Eastern thinkers. And they both kind of, to some extent, they represent almost like two, you could almost say like two different poles on the on how to understand the humanity and the divinity of Christ, right. And so the reason that we chose to read these two thinkers is like I say, they kind of lay the groundwork so these guys, Apollinaris, nine, the 382. So kind of mid to late fourth century, what what we come to know as Orthodox Christology is not really articulated in any kind of final or definitive fashion until the definition of Cal seed in the Acts of Cal Seaton, which isn't technically a council, or it's not, it's not a creed, I'm sorry, it is a council. It's not a creed in the same way that the Nicene Creed is it's, it's an explanation of what was meant, supposedly, in the Nicene Creed. But but there's not kind of like a definitive way where people think about okay, what does it mean for Christ to have the divine stuff and the human stuff in one entity, one person? So we're going to talk a little bit about that. But yeah, so we read these two people now both of these people that we read have been condemned as heretics. So whenever you're reading people who have been condemned as heretics, it's always hard to find stuff from them. So we're reading fragments from their more doctrinal works. We do actually have a fair bit of their biblical interpretation as an sort of an interesting footnote of to history. upholland, Eris and Theodore mops, who estia both sort of remain in kind of biblical interpretation manuals long into the medieval period. And so even though some of their ideas were rejected, their some of their biblical commentaries, you know, will continue to be used by orthodox writers and authors. And actually just a sort of interesting Augustinian footnote. Palladius is a student of theater of Mapquest. Yeah. And so there's a connection between the Palladian controversy, and, and theater of Mapquest yet, but I'll leave that to, you know, again, sort of interesting footnotes about how these people interacted. These guys, again, are both from Syria, both from the far eastern side of the Mediterranean. But the stuff that they debate sort of becomes central in the conversation throughout the Mediterranean, about the nature of how one can talk about the person of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh as God and human.

Tom Velasco 49:01

By the way, I would just kind of as just like, also kind of, I guess, a categorization kind of thing, I think, and you can correct me if I'm wrong on this, but you could kind of fairly say that when it comes to basic Christ ology that the two you could kind of break up all all heretical Christ ologies that have kind of popped up or I should say, that were prevalent, at least in the fifth century church, fourth and fifth century church. You can kind of categorize them all into two categories, I would think one would be monophysites ism of some kind, or metaphysics ism or whatever. But and then the other might be a kind of like the Stuart Nestorianism. Right. And they both kind of fall in one of these categories, like the pollen areas, is the Monophysite of a certain ilk. And then Theodore mops, who is the I think he's a He was an influencer and his story is himself right? Like he kind of helped kind of hone the stories view and the story in Christianity. Although it was condemned to heresy, it maintained a lot of followers and was essentially kind of the, the foundation of you know, kind of Eastern Christian. When I say Eastern, I mean, beyond orthodoxy like beyond the Orthodox world, you start moving over into modern day Iran and into India, you have this Nestorian Christianity that that that persevered you also have some Monophysite Christianity that first read all the way up to the modern day so it this is like these are big things whereas Aryan ism died out and has made various kind of comebacks in certain senses monophysites ism and Mysterion ism persisted through to the present day

Trevor Adams 50:55

what's what's Nestorianism?

Tom Velasco 50:59

Boy? Well, okay, come that's Can I just say that's the million dollar question. Because every time I read anything, like when I read Theodore Matsu esta, and when I've read this story, I can barely see a difference between it and the definition of calcium. Like, yeah, fairly which, anyway, Chad, do you have thoughts on that?

Charles Kim 51:18

Yeah, so a couple things. Tom's right. So all like it is. So one thing I guess before I start, like parsing some of this. Like there's a book by Rowan Williams on areas. And what Rowan Williams what he tried to do was he tried to be as fair and charitable as possible to areas. Now why would anyone want to do that? Well, because Rowan Williams is an interesting and careful historical scholar, as well as a theologian, but he did it so that they could figure out okay, what was actually at stake for areas and then for the pro nice scenes. So like, what did you know, we need to know what areas thought? Because we need to figure out okay, well, why did basil respond to you know, people who were have that sort of frame of mind? Or why does it Gustin respond to people of that frame of mind, so we need to know what they thought in order to figure out why someone responded in the way that they did. So as a historical enterprise, it is interesting to see what moves Theodore is making what moves Apollon Eris is making because they become part of the conversation. And even though they don't mean to, they are like some of the stuff that they the questions that they asked, become determinative for what becomes like Orthodox, standard Christian thinking. So in some sense, it's because Apollon heiress said, Jesus didn't have a human mind, he only had a divine mind that the Orthodox said, Well, wait a minute, we shouldn't say that. That sounds like he's not fully human. And so it's because we have a pollen heiress who raises a question that we you know, that we can even understand what so called orthodox thinkers were after. So being good historians, it's to sort of say, Okay, let's think about what they were on about, because that will help us understand the people that responded to them. Now, as far as the story is, it is very hard, it's always hard to reconstruct these guys, because once they get condemned, they start to, they don't want to the Orthodox don't want their thought and their ideas to be passed down. So they try to get rid of them. And we should also make like, and this is a broad, these sort of a broad set of distinctions, but in in the fifth century, so 1500 years ago, was one of the first great splits around Cal Seaton. And so what we consider today to be sort of Eastern Orthodoxy, you know, Greek orthodoxy, Russian Orthodoxy, these sorts of things. That's kind of that's a kind of sometimes that's just called Eastern Orthodoxy. But what Tom was describing is sometimes called the Church of the East. And so that's like, our, and they would be this either Mia visited me if desired, which means essentially mixed nature. Or mono fizz I have one nature and so there's that's that's part of what's going on here is Christ's nature as God and human How is it unified? How is it one and that will be a question like we'll see this even in a pollinators he's gonna say it's mixed. Right pollen Eris doesn't you know, that's like after calcium and that's becomes Neff. Foss, nefarious so you can't say that Christ is a mixture of humanity and divinity we want to say that he's properly human and properly divine unmixed. And, and and on, unlike fused, or something like that. So it's like, you know, they are well fuse but unmixed, not commingled. And so you know, so we'll see some of these things that will become forbidden after orthodoxy. But yeah, so so it's not clear exactly where the story is whether or not the story is had this kind of one nature thing or two natures. Right. So sometimes actually, his Protopic union seems to say that there are almost two people, right? So at some, at some sense, the story is seems to start to say, oh, it looks like you're calling to Christ's. There's the god Christ. And then there's the human Christ. And it's not really clear how they're unified as one kind of thing. And that will be SIP Cyril and the hypostatic. Union. But but we're way before all that.

Tom Velasco 55:54

Yeah. So one thing I would one thing I would add there is, you mentioned Monophysite, as the Church of the East, I don't know, the whole breakdown. But I do know, there was a strong contingent of historian Christianity in the East as well. I was just recently listened to a podcast history of China podcast, so shout out it's a really good podcast. But they were talking about Christianity in China. And the the, like the earliest stuff, not I don't know if it's the earliest stuff that we have, but but I think it was kind of like the second wave that entered China was all in the story in Christianity. But yeah, the story of Christianity, that the closest thing I mean, again, I'm saying the story in but I'm talking about Theodore mops, who sp-a Because of course, his influence on this story is, but when you read it, like reading it, it sounds very much like the Orthodox position that comes out at the definition of calcium eaten in 451. And you know, where it's like, you know, because the definition of calcium is gonna say, Jesus is one. One person with two natures. One, I think, I think they use people's tosses with two feces, right? With two feet. I say it kind of sounds like feces, says, two natures, where we get the word physics. And one is the god nature. One is the human nature. That is very much like what Theodore muffs who estia was saying, the only thing I would say is you're right, when when reading him, and then subsequently in the story is, it sounds like he's saying they're two distinct persons, but we're not. But that's what it sounds like. But then when you read what he says, it doesn't seem like he really, really asserts that, which I found pretty interesting. So I don't know, that was just kind of it's like, what he asserts just sounds really similar to the orthodox view. But it sounds like he's referring to two different persons, like the the god person and the human person, conjoined. But,

Charles Kim 58:02

yeah, well, and again, we're getting ahead of ourselves. We're sort of, I mean, from a historical standpoint, it can be helpful to say, Well, what do these guys say from what we have for trying to condemn them? And, you know, this is one of the things like if we're thinking about, like, what does it mean to be a sort of an orthodox, a true pious, a good Christian? You know, you kind of want to know, okay, well, which guy? Which, whose side should I be on? And, you know, so to some extent, neither of these people. But but also, yeah, it does depend, I think Tom's points a fair one. And I should say, I think I oversimplify by saying the Church of the East. That's quite right. I mean, there are Byzantine, right? Orthodox, like Roman Catholic people in the East. I mean, there are people that are aligned with Rome. Now. There are you know, they're Melkite Christians there are, they're all different stripes of communities in the Middle East that have varying degrees of connection to notorious or sort of contemporary Orthodox Christianity. So yeah, it does get really messy, and I don't, I wouldn't be able to name all the variations within the Middle East itself.

Trevor Adams 59:16

I'll be honest, reading both of these. I have a hard time understanding that big deal. So hopefully, I can be the confused audience member of the good substitute for the confused audience.

Tom Velasco 59:35

And I'm waiting. And when I'm with you, Trevor, I have kind of a hard time seeing the big deal. And here's the thing, reading appalling areas. I actually thought he made really good points. I thought he was a really good a really persuasive writer. Let me say it that way. Yeah. I thought his arguments were really good. And so I mean, I don't want to I'm not gonna run in and is declare myself a heretic along with with? What's his name?

Trevor Adams 1:00:07

William Lane story

Tom Velasco 1:00:08

with William Lane. I'm not gonna be an outright heretic like Craig. But I will say that, yeah, I mean, he made some really interesting points. And, you know, as far as I can tell, essentially what he says in it is look, with Jesus, you have a human body, just like everybody has a human body. And he makes a tripartite distinction of the human being, there's body, soul, and spirit. Now, I actually have always struggled to know what a Christian means when he makes a distinction between soul and spirit. I understand what I understand that distinction in the classical Greek sense, like Socrates is sense, that actually super easy to understand, like Socrates or I can say, Plato recording Socrates district describes soul, spirit and body using the analogy of a rider and a chariot, right? Where the body is like the chariot. The soul is the is the human, he's the one piloting he's the guy. And then the Spirit are the horses. And the idea is that the spirit is the thing that like a spirited person would be suddenly you might think of Winnie the Pooh, Tigger is spirit it, like jumps around, er is not spirited. So spirit is like strength and ohms, and go getting and that kind of thing. But when a Christian makes the tripartite distinction, I have no idea what that distinction means. And I welcome input on that. I've heard input people have given me all sorts of explanations, and I just cannot concretely draw that distinction. But a Polonez makes that distinction. And he says, Jesus had basically a human body I can't remember what he says about the spirit of its human or, or God, but that wrap that, but here's the big thing, Jesus was not born with a with the like, when when Jesus was formed in the womb, I shouldn't say in the womb, whereas a normal human being has a rational soul put in there in them, right, the mind part, kind of, I'm seeing, I'm looking at Trevor here as he sits in front of Descartes, an image of Descartes. So Descartes, ghosts can in the machine, right? The the the mind comes in Jesus doesn't have that instead, where the human mind would go the rational soul. The Divine Spark, the logos comes in right there, right. So yeah, I can see why that's troubling. Because that makes it sound like he's not fully human. Which I think Apollinaire is kind of asserts at the end of his thing, he kind of says, look, what you have is neither human nor divine, really, or both. I don't know if he's saying it's neither or both. It's, it's, it's like a little bit of, it's like a third kind of thing. It's like its own kind of thing, which is really what mono fizzy means. It's like, it's a, it's a one nature, it's its own thing. Nothing else is like it is essentially kind of what it is. And this is one of the kinds of mono fizzy beliefs. There are others like I know you Tiki anism is another kind of Monophysite where it's a little his is a little different. From my understanding, but But yeah, so it but some of his arguments were pretty compelling.

Trevor Adams 1:03:36

Alright, that's what I have a hard time. Not. This is what I don't understand. Why wouldn't Christ be human being? Because if all all we need is a body and a soul, I'm just gonna be real simple. It's like you have a material immaterial component. Right? You're a high low morphism of those two things. Supposedly, right? If that's the view, then why is that not why is that definition not met? Just because the immaterial part happens to be the second person to Trinity. That's what I have a hard time understand.

Tom Velasco 1:04:17

That's a good question. Chad. Well,

Charles Kim 1:04:21

so a couple things. I was trying to find where he says where Polonez says this

But um so at some point, he says Polonez makes the claim that it's a question of worship. So at some point, he sort of says, we don't worship a human being. And and so there's a so what above like, for, in my mind, like in order to situate this whole conversation, we want to say that there's a sense in which what they're trying to figure out is What does it mean when we worship Jesus Christ as God? And so we have this Jesus of Nazareth is human born of a woman. And we also would say, it's not proper to worship a human. So we have to worship what is God? Okay, well, how is it that there's something that is human in Jesus Christ that we worship, but it has a relationship so that we can predicate of that one person, worship to God, and God Self that's somehow a separate thing separate being a separate entity from what is human? So it's a question of worship, right? So all the way down. Every conversation about Christology that we will see for the next 100 years is a question of worship. They actually want to figure out what are we doing when we worship Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus of Nazareth? Because if I said we, you know, we should worship Joseph, of Aaron mithya, you would say, Well, no, he's a human. He may be the dad or without America, Thea but Joseph the carpenter, sorry. But if we say, Joseph, the dad of Jesus, well, we don't want to say we worship that Joseph, because Joseph is just a human may have some relationship in sort of family familial relationship to Jesus, but we don't worship humans, we worship the divine, we worship God. And so there's always this question of, okay, how is that proper? There's going to be another thing that we need to keep in mind. But Tom had something to say.

Tom Velasco 1:06:29

Yeah, well, I just found the passages or many of the passages that speak to what you said, and also to Trevor what you asked. And so the first point too, is at the top of page 108. Okay. So some of these, now I'm skipping over stuff. So I'm just looking at highlighted passages. And I'm looking at them and going, I'm confused where he was going with some of this, so so hear me out. And and then we can talk about it afterwards. But at the top, he says it is, it is inconceivable second line, that the same person should be both God and an entire man. So here, he's kind of denying the idea that the same person can be can be fully man, that seems to be what he's disagreeing with. Rather, he exists in the singleness of an incarnate divine nature, which is CO mingled with flesh, with the result that worshipers bend their attention to God, inseparable from his flesh, and not to one who is worshipped and one who is not. So you have the divine nature. And it's what we worship. And it is not an entire man, it is commingled with that man, but we want to make sure to be able to fully separate it, because you can't worship the man down to 41 than at the bottom. By this means the prophetic word reveals that he is CO essential with God not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit with his united with the flesh. Behold, the preexisting equality of the same Jesus Christ, with his father is subsequently acquired likeness to human being. So he's got and then subsequently, he acquires a likeness to human beings. And what more surely than this shows that he is not one together with another complete God, together with a complete man 45 He is not a human being, but is like a human being, since he is not co essential with humanity in his highest part. Now, I want to skip over to page 110, during the page to note at nine, because here, I get a little confused, because I think I understood everything you just said, as essentially, Jesus cannot be fully man, because if he's fully man, he's not worthy of worship. He is fully God, but that fully God has taken on the appearance or likeness of men. But now this really delves into the area, Trevor, that you asked about 89 Listen to this isn't a human being is made up of three parts, than the Lord is also a human being. For the LORD surely is made up of three parts spirit, soul and body, but he is the heavenly human being, and life giving spirits. So, Trevor, what you just said was, how is he not a human? If he has this spiritual part, and then skip to 93? He cannot save the world while remaining a human being being subjected to the common destruction of humans. But neither are we saved by God, except as he is mingled with us in becoming flesh that is human. However, he is mingled with us, just as the Gospel says, when he became flesh than tabernacled amongst us, actually, I didn't need to read that. Sorry. I had it highlighted not it mattered but

Trevor Adams 1:09:49

so you skipped over 91 though, and I wasn't sure how to take this. On the other hand, if we are made up of three parts while he's made up of four, where I got real I'm confused here because I thought I understood the view. And then I was like, Wait, where's the fourth part? He is not a human being but a man God. And

Tom Velasco 1:10:08

he's denying that God's made up a fourth of a fourth. Because what he's essentially saying, Sorry, I should have read that. What he's essentially saying is, is if if God the Son is like, he's I think almost kind of saying that like somebody like Theodore Matsu. estia has something like this view, that if God the Son, God, the second person, that Trinity, where you take a full humanity to themselves, then that would mean he'd be adding three parts, because a full human has three parts, which would then mean he has four. So he's essentially giving like a logical argument and saying, if that was the case, then he wouldn't actually be a man. Because the man only has three parts. He only has body, soul and spirit. So he's then finishing the argument, as far as I can tell, by basically saying, Listen to his hypothetical interlocutor, like Theodore mumps, who SPM he's saying, listen, he has to be in some sense. Or he cannot be two different natures. comingled. Like her, like, united in one thing, he has to be one part of this human concept, because there's no way to even speak of him as being human. If he's four, because then he's just not human. He's a God, man. So, so he's essentially saying, I'm kind of more like, he's like, he's essentially saying something of this. I'm actually more consistent with the idea that Jesus is fully human, then you Theodore Matsu estia. That's essentially what he's saying. Because I recognize that that Jesus has three parts like every other human, you're creating this weird hybrid thing. That is not like it's not even remotely human. Is what he's saying.

Trevor Adams 1:11:57

I'll be like, perfectly honest. I find this pretty convincing. Because

Tom Velasco 1:12:04

that's you like William Lane, Craig. Dude. No.

Trevor Adams 1:12:09

Because I view I think the other view is basically, possession. Oh, like,

Tom Velasco 1:12:17

Yes, I think Chad did not call a nurse. Eat one of our writers last night, appalling. There's four feet of Theodore. One of them refer use the word possession. I can't remember who it was. Might have been Theodore, but he's using it in a positive sense. You guys were here?

Charles Kim 1:12:35

Yeah. So a couple things. Yeah. I mean, so Polonez is the sort of possession view, right? So it's the spirit that possesses the human body. So the one that's what and that's really so you to Kin ism was another phrase that Tom used early on. So Apollon air sort of lays the seed for you to key anism, which is it's the mind of God that enters a human body.

Trevor Adams 1:13:01

Sorry, but I was viewing the other view is possession. Because, because this view to me seems like the mind just is the second person of the Trinity is mind. Yeah, one mind. The other of you is two minds. Yeah, that are somehow the same person. I don't even get that part. But then it's basically because the Christ nature is like just controlling the other mind.

Tom Velasco 1:13:30

By the way, Theodore, I just found it. Theodore admits that, because theater has the other view, theater and the other means that there are two he admits it, listen to this, look at page 118. In the second paragraph, he had an inclination beyond the ordinary toward nobler things. This is speaking of Jesus, because of his union with God, the logos, of which also, he was deemed worthy by the foreknowledge of God, the logos notice that speaking of Jesus as a totally different person, who united him to himself from above, listen to this. So for all these reasons, he was immediately possessed. Take together with judgment of a great hatred for evil. Oh, okay, nevermind, I'm sorry. I saw that word. And I used it, but I just realized he was using it in a different sense. That's probably Nevermind, I take that back. But it still sounds like possession though. Right? Like, like the description of what happened. Because what Theodore is essentially saying is, Jesus was a really good guy. And he was like, so awesome. That God the logos said here, took him up and said, I'm now going to join to you. So there's like, two minds inhabiting one body.

Charles Kim 1:14:49

And yeah, so another point that I was going to have to make here and this is like, again, to sort of start as I be as I begin to go back to what I began with a In one way in order to understand these people and understand what we're trying to trying to kind of what produces the idea of fully God fully man that most Christians, you know, if you ask an average Christian, you know, who is Jesus? What? Well Jesus is the fully God fully man, right? That mean they kind of know that phrase. So how do we get there? Well, in order to like so, as far as I'm aware, upholland, Eris actually maybe has a more platonic pedigree with this, but it's sort of interesting Cyril of Alexandria, who comes later. And some of the later writers will talk about humanity as if in two parts. That is body and soul. And so the the phrase spirit sort of takes a backseat. So So for, for Cyril, we're basically body and soul. We're not body, soul and spirit.

Tom Velasco 1:15:53

because zero is smart, and recognizes that nobody's yet come up with some kind of a definition yet.

Charles Kim 1:16:01

So at what at one point, what we have to try to do to make sense of all these people is to recognize like, yeah, it's sort of like Apollon heiress maybe has a better philosophical pedigree, that he knows this platonic tradition better. There's that that's actually one criticism of Cyril is that Cyril is not as well educated as people claim. And so you know, so he may just be he's a little more off the cuff for kind of like common sense, whereas Apollon Eris has a little bit, it seems to have a better kind of like a more nuanced view of what it means to be human. And so he can make kind of he can make this play where he could say, yeah, he's human, like us with body and soul. But there's this other thing. And so that's where we can find union in the, in the human part, and the divine part is by nature of this by virtue of the spirit, I should say. And that's that's kind of upholland, heiresses move. Now, like I said, it doesn't actually quite work for the later thinkers, because they don't really think of us as tripartite in that way. It's actually more diaper type,

Trevor Adams 1:17:10

which so I should, just because his name has already been brought up, I should say, as far as I know, William Lane Craig's view is Neo Apollon Aryan, because he basically takes a two part view of the person. And he just says, Yeah, so the, the immaterial part of Christ was just the second person to Trinity. And so in that way, it's a fallen Aryan, but it's Neo, because he's not, he's not saying it's part of the immaterial part or anything like that. He just says it's the entire immaterial soul is, is

Tom Velasco 1:17:53

appalling Neris. His argument holds either way, because those who let's say, the tripartite version of humans, then we have three parts. And then if you throw in the god part, you now have four, but let's say it's not dry part, let's say it's bipartite. Same thing holds, and that means a human has two parts. You throw in God, and you now have three parts. Either way, his argument is what you do you not have, in that case, you have somebody who's not a human. So he's what he's essentially saying is, is that his own view more accurately reflects humanity, then does Theodore Matsu SDS view? I again, I don't, he's not addressing Theodore specifically, but addressing that idea that God is two different distinct natures in one or that Jesus has two distinct natures and one, he's essentially saying, no matter how you cut it, when you do that you make him not a man. And so he's essentially saying that he even though he feels comfortable rejecting the idea that Jesus is a man in the traditional sense, what he's essentially saying is, but he's more of a man in my sense than in your sense.

Trevor Adams 1:19:04

See, whereas I still thinks we can just do full justice to both which is why he obviously thinks it is still an orthodox way to talk about it because you think you can still call someone like that fully human. Anyway, that was that was all sense. And I only talked about Craig since we brought him up but because he Have you

Tom Velasco 1:19:28

ever

Trevor Adams 1:19:31

Yeah, he's full. He's probably one of the only like, people who defends this so it's,

Tom Velasco 1:19:38

yeah, no, no, I love it. I love what you did. I'm I'm actually super intrigued and kind of want to read what he has to say on this subject. Especially because I'm not gonna lie. Apollinaire is like I was like, I'm I'm like I'm tracking man I'm gonna track and was what you're saying.

Trevor Adams 1:19:54

His his description he gives a he's like, this isn't a perfect analogy. He's like, but you know, Have the movie Avatar by was the James Cameron yep, yep. So that's sort of Christ like the main character I forget the name is like Jake or something. Yeah. Okay, the main character is like one person, but has two natures, the Navi nature and the human nature. And so in whatever way that that's similar, supposedly, like whatever Jake shares, when Jake is either the Navi or the human. That's sort of like what's going on here. That was that's directly from William and Craig, that was like from his podcasts, that was like the analogy.

Tom Velasco 1:20:44

You might have just converted me to both Apollo and Airism. And who avatar loving that movie. It's all supposed to be a picture of the union of the two natures of Christ, I need to write a letter to James Cameron, if he had any intention than that.

Charles Kim 1:21:05

So a couple of things here. Traditionally, we've wanted to avoid the view of a tertium quid, a third thing. And so you know, so we want to avoid the possibility that whatever Jesus is, is well, in some sense, not actually God, and in some sense, not actually human. It's just a third type of thing. And there seems to be some fear that you know what and eat and actually even Apollon air shares this intuition, right. I mean, that was like that, when he said, he becomes four kinds of things. That's essentially him saying he's a tertium quid, he's a fourth kind of thing. We don't want to say that. The other kind of, like sort of general rule that comes up in a lot of these conversations comes from Gregory Nazianzen, what was not saved or what was not assumed, cannot be saved. Yeah. And so, we want to say about Jesus's human nature that was identifiable with our human nature. So whatever it is, for us to be human, we need the second person of the Trinity to have assumed that. And so, so that so that in some sense, Jesus can identify it. So I think the fear on Apollon Eris and my fear on the Neo Apollon Aryan ism, so far as I understand it, is it feels like Jesus doesn't really exhaust what it means to be human. And so in some sense, is just a kind of well, I've used this analogy before, but it's the My, what is it? What Lady Gaga has Mizzu it's just God it's just God putting on a human meatsuit and I would say well, wait a minute, it's still Lady Gaga She just happens to have the the flesh of a pig or I think it was a cow on her.

Tom Velasco 1:23:02

I love these analogies today we got Lady Gaga is God in the flesh inner meatsuit and they Kelly is God to nature's This is awesome. This

Trevor Adams 1:23:15

is highbrow Christology.

Tom Velasco 1:23:17

This is for all, like we were talking about earlier. This is all for all you PhD students out there.

Charles Kim 1:23:26

Yeah, right. So I may Yeah, I'll lose all street cred now. We're actually on game Street. Yeah.

Tom Velasco 1:23:36

You're gonna it's gonna be the aristocracy, that's gonna have a problem with you now

Trevor Adams 1:23:42

you'll lose ivory tower credit or quad? Quad? That's part of university quad credit. All right, anyway.

Charles Kim 1:23:51

Yeah, so that's the fear, right? So you don't you don't want you don't want Christ just joined to the, to a part of the human. But but whatever it is fully human. So I mean, it to some extent, this is what pushes us towards theater of maps, so estia, because they don't map so sto wants to say that there is the fully human part and there is the fully divine part. And that they almost seem like two separate things. So there's like, and so it's ultimately, the characterization of the stories was that he created two sons. So there wasn't some center of personality, there wasn't some center of pert, like, we want to say person, not persons. You know, so Jesus has defined dissociative identity disorder. And, and so, you know, so there is like, you know, Jesus says to people, no, that's not right. Jesus is one. It's just a question of how and so, so that's where So and actually some of the statements from this story is, you know, become Part of the like, there's almost the heritage of calcium and depends on where you come from out of two natures is the phrase, and it's like that out of is doing all the work? Because it's the question of what what does that mean? You know, and? And so it's like, how do we how do we find a way for there to be a single center of personhood with these two human and divine natures. And that's anyway, so that's the criticism of Theodore is it doesn't seem like it holds.

Tom Velasco 1:25:37

Gonna ramp really quickly a tangential rant, and you need to keep this in check. Because in tremor, this is kind of to a point you made earlier. You talked about how you're like, what is the big deal, it strikes me, and I've been bringing this up a lot. Of course, we record about once a year as I brought this. So I've been bringing this up a lot in our once a year recordings. Just how one, we read all that work on the Trinity defining the Trinity, which for me got super tedious, because it was just the same thing over and over again. And it's always it hasn't always bugged me. But as I've been reading through it, it was bugging me how the center of Christian fighting was stuff that was definitional about the deity, that is so hard to know, how it all really played out, you know what I mean? Like these are really, really nuanced, very specific views that you just have to kind of step aside, you know, I don't know, I mean, we're all trying to make sense out of the Bible. And it just seems like, it's weird that these are the things that we really drew lines in the sand, right? Like, like, no matter what this is, this is the line in the sand. Not not things that not things like, you know, should we live lives of sacrifice? Does it matter to lay your life down for a brother? Should we hold fast to the testimony of Jesus? Should we be giving to the poor, right? It's like, No, you have to make sure he's calm substantial, and not something else. You know what I mean? Like, and, um, don't get me wrong, I hold to the Nicene view, I actually still hold the definition of calcium, in spite of everything I'm, I'm saying here, it's just so interesting that that the the things that we split hairs to the point of exile and killing people during this period in church history, and the things which subsequently became definitional for being a Christian, were these really highly high in the air, you know, Ivory Tower kind of arguments about the nature of the Deity, that there's no way we could all know very clearly, you know what I mean? So just wait, before you make your comment, I just want it because I, because I just actually, you want, I want you to make your comments on that. But I do want to do my rant really quickly that I just said I was going to because that wasn't it. My rant is actually tangential. My rants is actually tangential. I mentioned a little bit ago that at our church here in Boise, we had the theology in the rock conference that Preston sprinkle put on here at my church at Calvary Chapel. Boise was a really great conference. The first speaker of the event was Francis Chan. Who I, you know, I love Francis Chan. So I don't mean this as a as an attack on Francis Chan, per se. But Francis Chan seems to be moving. And I could be wrong in this, but he seems to be kind of moving towards Eastern Orthodoxy. And the whole talk ended up being that he gave, which really surprised me, it was an argument for the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. That was the whole talk. This is like, Okay, I don't really know what that's to do with almost anything we're talking about. But he was, he then went on to make an argument that I've heard before this one, this argument, though, drives me crazy. And this is my rant. The argument was that the church was just unified until 1054, when the grades gets

and that drives me crazy. And I know that that's a talking point I've heard it from and, you know, I've heard it from orthodox friends and Catholic friends and I don't mean this as an attack on you guys per se. Like I I love orthodoxy and Catholicism in different ways. But it's an attack like, like the church was not unified From its founding through to 1054 when we finally had a split, and then unified in the west until 1517, when Luther posted 95 theses, you have insane splitting of hairs over everything. And what happened is you had all sorts of splinter groups, which some of which came up when we were talking about earlier the church in the east and all the different groups chant starts bringing out not to mention countless others that we brought up the Donatists, and the Aryans and, and all of these, and there's gonna be so many more, they're all breaking up the difference between all of them. And what happened in 1054 and 1517, is those groups were either persecuted out of existence, or they just left and kind of went did their own thing separate from from everybody else. 1054 you have an even splitting of power. The Orthodox Church has power in the east, the Catholic Church has power in the West 1517 The thing that made the Protestant Reformation survive was that you had power backing the Lutheran church, Kings embrace Lutheranism. And then subsequently kings embraced Calvinism and subsequently, a king, invade embrace, Engler created Anglicanism. So it's like this idea that the church just had this one clear, almost like utopian, like unification all the way through 1054 is not true. It's a pipe dream. Anyway, sorry. That's my rant, end of rant. You can make your comments about what I was saying before I apologize for that.

Charles Kim 1:31:11

Well, so FCX Bowers, this famous German historian of the 19th century, the Bauer thesis is a diversity of Christianity's from the beginning. So the Bauer thesis is that, like, so I was talking about Syria, both these guys that we read came from modern day Syria, Israel, that area. Bauer's thesis is that Christianity just was different in North Africa, in Carthage, Christianity just was different in Gaul. Christianity just was different in Syria and Alexandria. Now, the question, the sort of Orthodox response to Bauer is how different or if there are these diverse centers, what does that mean for some kind of a unity? And so I mean, but this is just always the question, right? So like, what, what's wrong about Francis Chan's position, if his position is that there's essential unity until the 11th century? Well, for one, he's just, you know, this is such a historian thing to say, but he's just not reading the history. But, but that's the question. We always have this question. We've had this question from the time that Christ came if it's because it's even the Jews who follow Christ and the Jews who reject Christ, we always have to say, what do we do with the diversity? And how do we find a unity within diversity? And how do we, you know, I mean, there's just there's just there's no easy solution. And actually, this is David Bentley Hart's whole argument about what tradition is he thinks it's unanswerable. So we had Dr. Hart on the podcast and his new book tradition and apocalypse. It's basically a recognition that there's no way to say like, there's like other than sort of felt intuitions or kind of predispositions. There's no one way to say this is the one and only right tradition from Christ to the end. And so you just have a diversity of responses to the unfolding and unveiling that continues to happen between both the Incarnation up until the Persia until the final arrival, and we're just we're just kind of constantly respond to the revelation, but we won't know definitively. And now, you know, my criticism of heart is that it's essentially insufficiently Christian. Insufficiently crystal logical. So it seems I'm not sure what unveiling is for him. I want to I My intuition is methanation or Bharti. And that is just Christ. But so anyway, that's one thing to say. The for one thing, nobody in any of the stuff that we're talking about here, nobody was killed. Yeah, Peter of maps or SEO was theater of maps to STL wasn't killed Apollinaire as of late to see it wasn't killed. These people were not killed for the things that they said they they may have been ostracized they may have lost positions of power in some cases. But But these people were not no one was killed over this. So that's a Dan Brown historic not to Tom said this but but some

Tom Velasco 1:34:24

persecuted out of existence. What I meant was that groups, some of the sometimes people were killed, and sometimes people were exiled. But the bottom line was is that groups just could not continue to thrive in the environment that they were in. So whatever that meant, whether that meant they left of their own accord or whatever. I just when I say persecuted out of existence, I mean, that it was not tolerated to exist within the like, like I don't ever remember, Aryans being killed. And once upon a time In Roman history, the Aryans were the power group. But by the time you get to Theodosius, and he does make I do know he makes laws against Arianism. I don't know if that meant they were killed or whatever. But whatever it was both politically and civilly, or culturally Arianism had to go to underground to keep existing, and eventually it just kind of petered out. That's probably meant by I wasn't an actual killing of anybody, per se,

Charles Kim 1:35:28

set. So the other thing that I'll say is like to me, so I teach I teach theology. I say that I use a 17th century definition of theology. Theology is living well for God and speaking well of God. So it's essentially the Catholic Vita, contemplative komplet Teva Vita Aktiva. So the active life in the contemplative life, so whatever we're doing in theology, it is those things like loving the poor, that's the ology, right? There's the sense in which being theological is doing the things that a Christian does. There are also things that mean to be theological, that mean to contemplate the difficult things. And so like, there's a sense in which this is all feels like very abstruse, and, you know, esoteric, and what have you, but are arcane. But wouldn't it have to be? I mean, like, you know, so it's like it, you know, if our minds are capable of such distinctions, we, it would be weird if we thought God wasn't worthy of us using our minds to make such distinctions. You know, like there's, there's a sense in which I'm not saying it's required of all creatures. The other thing I'll use the bar tea and definition of theology, which I find helpful. Theology is a second order discipline, in some sense, as well, that the Vita contemplative, the speaking well of God is the second order discipline, what do I mean? Well, that that part of it responds to what one does in the Liturgy of the Word. And so you know, when we pray in the name of the Father, Son, in the Holy Spirit, when we baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, when we worship Jesus Christ as Lord, that is God. You know, theology says, Okay, those things are true axioms of our faith. Jesus Christ is Lord, that is the gospel. You know, we pray in the name of the Father, Son of the Holy Spirit, we baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now, as a contemplative discipline. How do I make sense of that? So it's second order, right? So the faith of the Faithful is still true, right? And so that's why you know, the words in the name of the Father, Son in the Holy Spirit should always be used in baptism, regardless of who says it, and and that because that is the faith and that faith is true. And that faith is revealed in Matthew 28, and in Scripture. And so So what theology does is try to use our mind to ascend and into hard, more more difficult things. So now, I agree with all the difficulty that this can cause with what happens when we disagree. But I actually think one interesting thing about reading upholland, Eris and Theodore in areas is how faithful they thought they were being to scripture. But okay, that's my rant and response, Tom.

Trevor Adams 1:38:28

Well, and so you know, Paul in there, it's did defend, like the Nicene version of Christianity as well. It's interesting that of all the views, or of all the Christianity's today that exist, the ones that get labeled Orthodox, and the ones that get labeled, like pseudo Christianity or cold like, are essentially the ones that just deny Nicene Christianity, which is kind of interesting when you think about it, but it's so it's almost like he, he was a defender of the thing that everyone viewed as very important around that time. So because he was right on that. He was praised. I just looked at new Advent to see what the Catholic Encyclopedia would say about him too. And it did it said like a lot of people around that time did did talk highly of him. Like he was a really great person. So it's like he was really looked up to it's just his view, got condemned, like right before he died. So he did die in condemnation, technically of his view, but like, Yeah, but I think that's why I'm on this one actually confused because I just see this as an issue of very, like, especially given the sort of metaphysics I see today, in like a contemporary, analytic, philosophical department. I'm like, this is just super technical metaphysics at this point. I mean, I get that I understand the goal given And the theological commitments we have given the things we've already said. So given it's secondary. But yeah, he thought he had that goal. He thought he did assume humanity despite, despite him not doing in the way, I guess, was desired by everyone else in the church. So I, it's, it's sort of like, to me it's a question of whether something counts as something. Or like, are we using the words this way or that way? And I so yeah, I don't know. This is the first time I guess I should say, I've just been very I don't know if converted a view but I'm just very chair I feel charity toward toward these sort of these heretics, especially appalling errs, I can kind of see Theodorus view being a little weirder. Actually, to be perfectly honest. Because it's like what especially we compares it to like an iron being heated up or whatever. I don't know. i The maybe it was just as analogies business analogies, threw it off for me. But yeah, I don't know. I feel a sense of like, Okay, that wasn't really that bad. Like, even if that isn't how people decided they wanted to understand this. I think I get what you mean, in your view, you totally you hit all the marks, you got to human, still God, get through nature's you know, but one person. And in some sense, in some sense, we get to still like worship the flesh. I think he literally says that phrase. And so in some sense, he's just he's assumed humanity, because you have a human here now, because you got all three parts. So I don't know I at least I'm like, All right, I get there's a sense in which this fully meets all the things that everyone all his contemporaries said he needed to meet. So I guess that's why I was like, Huh, that's really, this wasn't as crazy as like, whereas we read other heretics, and I was just like, Yeah, okay, that's That's heresy.

Tom Velasco 1:42:22

I think, Trevor, you bring up a really important point. That's part of kind of what I was getting at, I think, with his, you know, when you live in a, like, in a faith, right? You feel a dogmatic constraint, you just do, where that dogmatic constraint tells you don't start thinking outside of this ceiling. Because this ceiling is not breakable. I feel it. Right. I mean, I tried to engage anti Christian philosophies and arguments and things of that nature. And I know I say that very vaguely, but I try to engage them and think through them and try to be fair to him and try to ask myself whether or not you know, those are legitimate critiques and what have you. But it's really hard for me to get past certain boxes, that just felt like tell me, I have to believe X. So I'm not going to really, really entertain anything beyond X. And I think what you'll find is a lot of the heretics we've read, fully submit to the established dogma, and they just don't want to go beyond that. Like, I just think about areas go to areas and think about what He taught. It really wasn't as radical in his time, as we think it is. Now granted, of course, he is denying denying the full deity of Christ. But if you really read him in light of origin, and if you read what origin wrote, what Arias wrote is very similar to what origin wrote, so much so that one of the main reasons that we have after the factor that many after the fact went back and kind of condemned origin is there like, ooh, he is a little too close to areas, which means Clement of Alexandria is also a little too close to areas and we don't want to condemn him because he's just so solidly set, as you know, an important church father, so it's like Arias, he might have like, veered out of that line. I mean, he did I think he really did. But he didn't veer out as much as we think he did, given what was acceptable in his time. Now, I think that the nice scenes were right, I don't like I don't think Arias was right. I think they were right, and really saying, okay, whoa, whoa, we're now going beyond what we should. But I also don't think of various is like this malicious, you know, evil guy who like I think he had this dogmatic ceiling, which he 100% was going to consent to, and then he veered out because because we all those who are thinkers veer out as much as they can because they're trying to understand things. You get to theater We're mops, USPS and appalling areas. And what you have is you have two people where that dogmatic ceiling has been set at Nicaea. They're not going to go beyond Nicaea. But this other bit hasn't been. So they're going to start really like saying, Okay, what is the nature of this union, and they have no idea that they're doing something that that is heretical or something like that. And if that ceiling had been set, they wouldn't have violated it.

Trevor Adams 1:45:25

Okay, so I get what you're saying. But I think there is still like a slight differences, just just that, ironically, at least for the Polonez I get the sense that he still does think he would even meet the neck of the bar that ends up being set which is like you gotta have you know, two natures one person I think he still thinks he's like, met that bar even I mean, that I guess that that's, that is the only like, slight difference. Where is it? At least with you know, Arias, it was pretty clear. Like, what he said is just totally different from obviously, but still, like, not beyond the pale, like not Yeah, like way outside the the sort of Overton Window not like, beyond the zeitgeist of the time, or whatever. But so I get that. Yeah. So I get that sense. Like, I see the analogy there. But it does felt like when I read this, and it was like, Oh, well, let's just define humans a certain way. Define assume a certain way. We're there. We got it with this view. Oh, but you don't like that? Why? Oh, that doesn't count as assuming why? Because assuming mean something else to you. Okay. Well, then. Okay. Sure. But But that, I guess is why I was.

Tom Velasco 1:46:38

I don't mean to take issue with the way you said this, I could be wrong. And that you said that a Polonez fits, at least that he's trying to attain something this level, that is what will be set. And the thing there is what's troubling about or what's difficult about that is, is like how can anybody know what will be said like, I think areas, areas? Areas, I think areas knew that he was contradicting people who said that Jesus is fully God. But I think Arias did so saying, Oh, but look, I've got this whole tradition that backs up what I'm saying. And I think Arias felt comfortable saying Jesus is God, lowercase g and this one sense. And this is something we have to ask out, I don't think he could have known that the Council of Nicaea would just say, No, we're drawing a line in the sand. And this view we're putting with you think is really consistent with what origin said, is not going to be acceptable to the point that we're not even going to accept what origin writes on on the Trinity anymore. I don't think he could have anticipated that. So I mean, yeah, you are right. And I see how you're right, in that sense, but I don't see how that would change the nature of that person. Like in terms of, that's really an antidote, I'm

Trevor Adams 1:47:49

not, I'm not judging. I'm not judging any of these people to do that. And that way, I just meant I feel more charity here, in the sense that he, you know, he, like he was alive while this whole thing was being discussed, so he saw all the disagreements like in front in front of his face. And I would think that it this this is like, I'm not the historian. So a real storage actually, it just reads to me as if like, he's talking to people who disagree with him, and he's going no, I'm saying what you're saying. That's how it feels. It feels more like I'm saying what you're saying kind of thing with the contemporaries because he gets, like I said, he gets I just read it. Like, he does get condemned for his death. So he knows about it, or his view does apparently, no one ever said his actual name in their condemnations, like they didn't attribute this view to his name, I guess. Like while he was alive, but so maybe they respected him that much. I'm not really sure. But like, it's so to me. I just, I don't know, in that way, where it's like, yeah, I read the words. I'm not judging any of these people as people like I would think Arias probably a great person who viewed himself as a devout Christian. So in that way, I'm judging them both the same. I just had even more charity, given what I know now, coming from the future, looking back on it. I'm like, I could see how this person actually thought that, you know, given the talk of the time that he did meet the conditions. Yeah.

Charles Kim 1:49:29

So what one thing all right, here's my last chance to condemn appalling errors.

Tom Velasco 1:49:35

I love them. You know, it's funny really quickly is Chad, like, when I first met you, man, you were like, You were opening everything but now you're the guy who wants to condemn everybody.

Charles Kim 1:49:49

Well, I'm kind of kidding. Well, so I guess I want yeah. There's a lot of things that can be said about personal changes in my life.

Tom Velasco 1:50:02

I've just met them everybody you wanted to.

Charles Kim 1:50:08

It's true. So but okay so on on page 109 45, Apollon Harris says, Behold, O L 42. Even Behold, the pre existence equality of the same Jesus Christ with his father has subsequently acquired likeness to human beings. And what more surely than this shows that he is not one together with another complete God together with complete man, he is and then the next 145 He is not a human being, but as like a human being, since he is not co essential with humanity in his highest part. So yeah, the real I mean, to my mind will one he starts talking about mingling, which becomes anathema. And he doesn't know that right? Though, the whole idea of not mingling divine and human, he has no idea that that's going to become a problem, because he very flatly celebrates it early. And so yeah, so that would be a kind of ceiling that he didn't know. He was supposed to to avoid. But he should know better than to say that Jesus said, Well, I don't know maybe you shouldn't know better, maybe you shouldn't. Here's what I'll say that what Cyril of Alexandria, what Athanasius of Alexandria will also say it's not that Jesus is anyway, like a human being. Jesus just is what it means to be human. So it's not so so to some extent, I asked the question, I think like when you teach this, you should have people think about their intuitions about what it is to be human, and what it is to be God, and you start, but for what people normally do, and what you do with that exercise is you think about us. You think about me and Trevor and Tom and the humans that we know and think about what does it mean for us to be humans, there's an extent to which what Athanasius. And what Cyril would say is, in order to understand what it means to be human, you looked at Jesus. And so the perfect definition of human isn't our humanity, it is the humanity of Jesus. So it's not a likeness to our humanity, it's our humanity should be brought into a likeness of Christ's humanity.

Trevor Adams 1:52:20

But then vandamm, then it could just be then against

Charles Kim 1:52:26

could be the other way. It could be the other way. It could be other way. Fair enough. But so I like the intuition. I like the intuition, though, that says, there's an extent to which we should rightly say all of us are lacking in our own humanity. And it is an imitation of Christ that is being brought up into the life of Christ. That's what brings us into the fullness of humanity. And and so that we're all deficient in some sense, and that is only Christ who is not deficient.

Trevor Adams 1:52:56

And that could be we could take that view, and then yet still make it consistent with this metaphysics.

Charles Kim 1:53:01

Yeah, that's that well, so. I mean, I was kind of condemning him. But actually, it's sort of it's actually it's sort of interesting, though, just as a point that we'll see going forward. Cyril of Alexandria, unconsciously utilizes Apollo and Eris and his defensive orthodoxy. So the the phrase hypostatic union, which becomes the definition of Orthodoxy, whose phrases that Apollon Harris's

Tom Velasco 1:53:26

I didn't read that, that he used that in

Charles Kim 1:53:29

our reading, oh, he doesn't, he doesn't use it in here, but it comes out in the debates, because actually theater of Cyrus who have done a little bit of work on he, he does not want to say hypostatic union because he says don't, you know, Cyril? That that is actually a Polonez phrase, you use the heretic. And Cyril takes the day right, a lot of people kind of will will sideline Theodoret. But it's sort of another interesting feature of these debates. fIatter it calls out Cyrus calls out Cyril and says tisk, tisk, Tisk. You cannot use a heretic to generate orthodoxy. And, and that's actually what kind of takes the day. So yeah, so I mean, I actually do wonder if some of these intuitions even about Apollo and Eris are really civilian. Like we're Cyril looks at this and says, I think he's got a lot going for him.

Tom Velasco 1:54:25

Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. By the way, I just want to clarify, I do hold to the definition of Cal Seaton, and pretty unabashedly. I did just find appalling, Harris, you know, a little interesting and compelling. One thing I only got about 20 minutes before I gotta go. Yeah, one thing I would like to address really quickly, because and I don't know, because we've kind of just cursorily said this, but for our listeners sake. Like, I feel like right now we're in the weeds regarding the theological debates that are going on really said that are going to really be wrestled through at the Council of Ephesus and 431. And the Council of Cal Seaton and 451. And I know Ephesus, their big concern was to kind of repudiate, I think the story is on the issue of whether or not Mary is properly called the God bearer or Theotokos. And by the way, this isn't really a question of Mary. It's a question of Jesus, because the question is, is when Jesus is in Mary's womb, what is his nature? And my understanding is the story of said that you that you could call Mary, the Christ bearer, but not the God bearer. And I think that has something to do with this union of the two natures or whatever term he used. That almost is kind of like Theodore is via Theodore Matsu, estia. This view that you have God the logos, and you have the man Jesus being united, and that it's like, what was in Mary's womb was the man Jesus, not God, the logos, but I find it interesting because theater of mops, who estia clearly is okay, with a thumb theme with a term Theotokos, which is going to be the Oregon bear, which is going to be the big debate, right? So really quickly just turned to it's on page 121. And it's in his section on the Incarnation, book 12, fragment 11. And it says, Let no one be deceived by the artfulness of their questions. It is disgraceful, as the Apostle says, to set aside so great a cloud of witnesses, and deceived by clever questions to be joined with a party of our opponents. What is it they aren't fully asked Is Mary, a man's mother, or God's mother? And then who was crucified God, or a man. But the solution of these puzzles is clear, even from our previous answers to their questions. Nevertheless, let us right now say what ought to be said. So merely by way of reply, next paragraph, when they asked whether Mary is man's mother or godfather, we must say both the one by the nature of the thing, the other in virtue of the relation, Mary was a man's mother by nature, since what was in her womb was a man, just as it was also a man who came forth from her womb, but she is God's mother, since God was in the man who was fashion. So it's interesting, I just find that interesting, because I know that that fight in emphasis is really about what is the nature of Jesus in the womb and theater? And I don't know how the story is would have replied to this. But Theodore seems comfortable saying that the baby Jesus was also God in the womb as well. I don't know. What do you think?

Charles Kim 1:57:54

Um, I think we do need to step up for another podcast. Yeah, well, because there's some thought about whether or not when the story is causes this controversy, whether or not he Well, does he do it on purpose? So you know, it could just be a kind of it may whether or not it satisfies this intuition from the so called school, the anti keen school that he's a part of, or whether or not it's just the kind of trying to drop a bomb on the Constantinople when he preaches the first sermon, where he tries to switch this phrasing. You know, whether or not it really satisfies these intuitions, I'm not sure. But but a lot of people think that he was basically just trying to cause a stir. Really?

Trevor Adams 1:58:42

Yeah. Interesting. i So, I mean, I don't, I don't want to take up the final thing we talked about, but then I just, I would like, I just think it'd be nice because it'd be a clear book in what was exactly the metaphysics of how the orthodox view got flushed out, because obviously now, what they want to say against Paul generis is something like, you have a full human and thus, even the immaterial part is human. But what's the So then, how does that part get to be the same person as the logos?

Charles Kim 1:59:29

It's the hypostatic union becomes the cetera that that becomes the, the means by which we can predicate on Jesus the person the things of the second person of the Trinity. So the hypostatic union is the metaphysical conception that says we have a kind of singularity within two things. And and that are within one united thing. But But yeah, so it's, uh, you know, one person to nature yours is possible by the hypostatic union. That is the solution that says, Whatever, whatever is going on here, you know we can so it's like, yeah, I mean that that's it. So I don't exactly what is a hypostatic? Union? I don't know.

Unknown Speaker 2:00:23

I like it's a tertiary, tertiary.

Charles Kim 2:00:28

There are no other hypostatic unions, as far as I'm aware, right?

Trevor Adams 2:00:32

Oh, yeah. This is exactly what I'm talking about is that this is why to me this one is so like hairsplitting, because I'm like, wow. How, anyway, we don't have to get into the trial of Apollo and Eris is what we should call this episode, though.

Tom Velasco 2:00:51

And yes. And we need to, like we need to spend some more attention on this story is, and I'd like to do a little bit more in theater because I'm really, I really struggle to distinguish theater. So here's what I would say. Apollon Aries, I read them. I'm like, Wow, good arguments. I'm very sympathetic. Theodore, Theodore, above to sp-a. And I haven't read the story. So I need to read some of his stuff. But I have read descriptions of the stories that I go, don't like, it doesn't make sense. But it's hard for me to distinguish what they believe, from the definition of Kelsey Eaton and the hypostatic. Union. I'd like because, I mean, my big problem with them, which I imagine is what you know, was the problem in their day, is the way they describe the second person of the Trinity, as if he's a second being different from Jesus. That's what I don't like. But, but then they'll make the necessary qualifiers to make it sound like theologically, they're very much in line with what we believe now. You know? What?

Trevor Adams 2:02:06

Oh, thank God,

Charles Kim 2:02:07

we could we could close with this. So I called theology, the Vita contemplate Teva, the contemplative life? This is one question that I always had. So there's, there's an extent to which this is meant to be a it's meant to be a kind of spiritual consideration. And like, so what would it mean to say that the kind of insights are required to sort of attain to Orthodoxy or something? You know, like, not everyone, oh, how I'm gonna say this. Like, it's almost like, do you think that you could, you could go through all of this study, without having a sort of, I don't know, an active devotional life, like in piously, can you in piously dissect all the arguments, and come to an orthodox conclusion? Like that might be how they would say it. So for all of them, every, like, when you interpret Scripture and read scripture, there's an assumed sort of, yeah, pious, spiritual, like religious thing that's supposed to be going on, like you're supposed to be moved by the Spirit to understand these things. It is oh, you know, it's like, like, you know, you think of Jesus in the parables He who has ears let him here. And so do you find this to be the kind of like, what what would it mean to have this conversation about the Trinity outside of sort of a to use the common phrase lived spirituality? does? Does that impinge upon what one thinks about these things in your mind?

Trevor Adams 2:04:03

And thought of it that way.

Tom Velasco 2:04:07

So I don't know, rephrase the question for me.

Charles Kim 2:04:11

I can only also I can only barely hear you. I think you might be covering your microphone, rephrase the question for me. Yeah. So like, if I if I'm as an avowed atheist, and I read this stuff that we just read, do I come to the same conclusions? If I'm an avowed Christian who's praying daily reading the Scriptures daily and going to church as I read them? Are the conclusions different? Are the like, like, to what extent does my spiritual life make me more ready to accept these things or give me insights or something I don't know does does your does your sort of spiritual life change how you read and think about the nature of God?

Tom Velasco 2:05:05

Well, I would think so I mean, I would think of it like, if I were to read, like a Muslim theology of some kind or Hindu theology, I would be coming as a third party observer. And my goal is to is, is mostly just to understand what this group of people believe, as accurately as I can. But in doing I would I, but but I'm not looking at it as a guide to what is true, right. And I would imagine that that would be true with an atheist looking at Christian theology, they might be interested for some reason, in understanding what Christians believe as kind of like a, an observational practice in some sense. And so then their goal would be to have the most just kind of the most clear understanding of what has been taught, but they don't look at it as like a guide towards truth, right? Whereas if I come into it, and I'm like, wait a minute, I believe in the scriptures that these people are wrestling through. And my goal is actually to know where these scriptures are leaving me that I look to these guys for acts as actual guides, right?

Trevor Adams 2:06:14

Well, yeah, and furthermore, like, yeah, I seek a relationship and love this. You know, God, so I'm also trying to like, be I guess respectful is one word, but it's like more than that reverent I guess I'm trying to Yeah, I'm trying to revere the right thing i because to me, like the whole, the only reason I even care about Christology is because we worship Christ. Like, we're, it's really weird. Once you think about it, it's like, oh, we worship a person, like, fully worship person all the time. And so I'm like, okay, like, I pray to a person who was once like a human who actually walked on the earth. That's a pretty big deal. That's kind of totally opposite of, you know, the Jewish faith that we sort of have our history. And so it's sort of, to me, it's like, you know, we need a pretty good explanation of why we're going to do such things if we're going to, if we're going to do them. And so yeah, I, I approach it that way. Whereas Yeah, of course, like a you someone just coming out from the outside would be like, it's not gonna affect how they live their life. But like I would if I was not convinced that Christ was God. I wouldn't worship Christ at church. Yeah. So yeah. So I guess that that would be that definitely affects why I'm willing to accept certain things. But that is also why I've come away like more confused about Apollinaire stick, because I'm like, well, he definitely has gotten on this view. He's got that part. So he's got the thing that I really care about. Doesn't make me like irreverence. I'm not like worshipping a human any or? I am. But yeah, but not like, anyway, you get what I'm trying to say. It's like, it's not. It's not committing me to like, some sort of crazy behavior, I guess, like, Oh, you guys are just worshipping, like this mere man that walked around? Yeah, because I guess I have that intuition wasn't only a man like that. That is the thing just wasn't special. Obviously. It's special. Yeah. I don't know.

Charles Kim 2:08:31

Yeah, I think I think the same things you do. I don't know. It was just there. Just like when you read these guys, they do they often have sort of some thing about, you know, like, you're like, what, it's a progression, right. So like, there's an extent to which like for origin, and like they talked about, like, like, you could be a neophyte, you could be a new Christian, a simple one. And you you are on your way towards perfection towards completion. And so some of this stuff is a an inherent part of sort of becoming fully well become fully part of the divine life, I guess. But yeah, so I don't know, like, you know, some people might say, these are just sort of, like academic distinctions. And, and things like that. But there's also said, which, like, for them, it's, there's a whole posture of Yeah, of piety of reverence of some of these kinds of words. That I don't know, just, it's just an interesting thought, like, you know, I could see why someone might think, well, this is just like, you know, do you understand the, the inner workings of the internal combustion engine? Well, we could talk about all the features of that, whether or not we trust, I don't know, the way that a car works, but somehow we think that what we're doing is a little different than just like, I don't care how the internal combustion is functions. I just drive it

Trevor Adams 2:10:00

It's, it's to me, it's almost more like, like Tom and I could argue about who Tom Bombadil was. Within the Yeah, there you go that we ever have. I don't know why I came up with. I don't even have a set view on who Tom Well,

Charles Kim 2:10:17

because he's not in the movie. You have to talk. Yeah,

Trevor Adams 2:10:21

yeah, yeah. But the point is like, you know, I just read The Silmarillion, like, last year. So it's like, I now have all these opinions about the Tolkien world. And we could argue about it, but at the end of the day, it's like, whereas Yeah, this there's a sense in which of course, yeah, I find that there's like, obviously no truth in some sense to who Tom Bombadil was, we're in this sense there is so yeah, that kind of going back to what Tom said, it definitely affects how we want to talk about it. And whether or not we even share, like some base level commitments because like the difference to me, me talking to like, Tom about Apollo Neris versus like, obviously talking to like a Mormon. Where it's like a totally different understanding of God. Yeah, it's just the way we wouldn't even have a common language to start. We wouldn't even have the same areas in which we are trying to be reverent to start off with so yeah, yeah.